This blog runs parallel to a new poetry blog 'Poetry Pinfold' (poetrypinfold.blogspot.com), and a new blog with poems in Dutch (bartnooteboomgedichten.blogspot.com)

Saturday, May 2, 2015

196.
Trust under stress

Under
stress, what happens to trust? Does it collapse or does it become stronger?

Earlier
in this blog, I argued that underlying trust and distrust there are two frames
ofmind: a self-interested frame,
guarding one’s resources, and a solidarity frame as a basis for the give and
take of trust. It seems that in human evolution we have developed instincts for
both.

Under
threat of survival, then, one might expect that the defensive frame of guarding
one’s resources wins out over the solidarity frame, making trust fragile.

On
the other hand, especially under stress, in a crisis, people may need each
other more, and will simply have to make trust work.

When
the one, and when the other? It depends on whether there is a zero-sum game,
with the gain of the one occurring at the cost of loss to the other, or a
positive-sum game where collaboration yields gain for both.

For
example, when a firm is in crisis and needs to lay off employees, rivalry may
arise between them as to who will stay and who will go. Collegial solidarity
and give and take corrode.

Unless
it is precisely collaboration and give and take that may overcome the crisis.

But
is this, the occurrence of positive or zero sum, always a given, something
external, or is it also, to some extent at least, something made, something one
develops?

Crises
increase uncertainty, things are happening out of the ordinary. Existing
protocols no longer work. The basis for monitoring and judging the actions of
others falls away. Outcomes are unpredictable, and one needs to focus on the
quality of process rather than on the desirability of outcomes. One has to
improvise and explore actions that fit the specific, unknown situation. It
helps when earlier one has developed sensitivity to context.

Trust
also requires empathy, the ability to imagine oneself in the shoes of the
other, and that also requires sensitivity to context, to the specific
conditions that affect the position, the perspective of the other.

Empathy,
plus a sense of quality of process, and sensitivity to context, develop in the
development of the art of trust.

Trust
is not a scarce resource that is depleted in its use. It may increase, deepen,
become more robust in its use. The joint solution of problems on the basis of
trust deepens trust.

By
accepting the risk of collaboration, in trust as a leap of faith, with the
ability and wisdom to deal with it, one develops positive sum games in
profiting from each other’s differences, in the novel combinations of thought
and practice that yield innovation and the joy of creation. And it yields the
skill and competence to better deal with the uncertainties of crises.

So, the advantage of
a culture, habit, and skill of cooperation, in give and take, empathy and the
skill of trust, is not only valuable in itself, in developing inventive novel
combinations, but also creates robustness under crisis, in resisting the
collapse of trust, and possibly even deepening it.

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Poems posted on Poetrypinfold.blogspot.comComing down (a memory of Genevaa) NightYin and YangPoetry pinfoldSiëstaDown and out in the mindThe stream bears light (the Nasrid palace at the Alhambra)From one to many Sunday in GoudaOn the canalStanzas of stone (San Gimignano, torre grosso)The words have a ballNo rocket scienceMontreuxNew roomGenerationsSister (Paris)MotherMother 2Blessed solitudeCivil servantAdolescent lamentThe streamTender rip-offNight 2BirdsAtlas unmovedSeminar on KrakmaroDiplomacyDepositionWinter train in ThuringenSarajevoFar aheadHat trick on the canalFlowers of deathOn a camping one night

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